He Couldn’t Say No To The Manson Family

Part 2 of our story about rancher George Spahn

In the summer of 1968, Charles Manson and members of his Family (a communal anti-establishment group) came to stay at Spahn Ranch, a 500-acre property north of Los Angeles formerly used by film and television studios as a backdrop for Westerns. By the late ’60s however, Spahn Ranch was in poor condition. Westerns had fallen out of fashion with viewing audiences, owner George Spahn was several years in arrears on his taxes and couldn’t afford to pay his hired help, and he was subsisting off of rented pony rides.